Pasta, Black Bean and Corn Salad with Jamaican Jerk Drum Sticks and Sweet Potato Fries

This was put together for an impromtu night of grilling and celebrating a special birthday. Love a google search for inspiration and adjusted the pasta salad recipe (to include pasta) and exclude tons of beans and other nonsense. It came out great!
The drumsticks were marinated over an hour in a jamaican jerk sauce. We have made our own version before for pork but this sauce was more a spicy bbq version.
Lastly, the sweet potato fries cooked up well using the "convection" feature on our Krups toaster oven. 425° for 15 minutes. First, peel potato and cut into fry sticks. Toss well in a covered bowl with olive oil, garlic powder, smoked paprika, crumbled rosemary. Turn 1/2 way through cooking. Did I mention use Nonstick Reynolds foil? That stuff is the bomb. This photo is of the leftovers (mmm cold chicken drumstick) the next day. Great summer meal. Fries eaten the day before (a tester favorite, with 'chup of course).

Pasta Salad Ingredients

* 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained (didn't use entire can, maybe 3/4)
* 1/2 box Barilla Plus rotini pasta, cooked and drained
* 1/4 green bell pepper, chopped
* 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
* 1 (10 ounce) package frozen corn kernels
* 1/4 red onion, chopped
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
* 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
* 1 clove crushed garlic
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
* few dashes Tabasco
* 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Directions

1. In the large pot you cooked the pasta in, combine beans, bell peppers, frozen corn, and red onion.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, lime juice, lemon juice, sugar, salt, garlic, cilantro, cumin, and black pepper. Season to taste with hot sauce and chili powder.
3. Pour olive oil dressing over vegetables; mix well. Chill thoroughly, and serve cold.

Everything bagel toasted with cream cheese and sliced green onions, topped with roast beef

This is a late-night treat!
...And you can delay breakfast the next a.m.

Great use for roast beef leftovers or even nice roast beef lunch meat.
Toast your bagel, coat with lard (preferably whipped cream cheese) and sprinkle with sliced green onions.

A weighed-down bagel~!

Enjoy!

Enchiladas! Chicken or Veggie or what-have-you

First off, this is tester approved!
This is a basically great recipe and open to much interpretation. Eliminate the chicken and replace with rice and beans!

Original Kraft "Fiesta Chicken Enchiladas" recipe used flour tortillas which are more pliable.
I came up with this based on Kraft recipe comments and taking in mind a couple other enchilada recipes. I can't call it an enchilada unless it's rolled in a baked soft corn tortilla.
The only sauce you need to concern yourself with is finding the best salsa. This makes it easy! You could even go on the cheap.
No need for special "enchilada sauce" preparations (unless you find something good).

Ready to eat! A dollop of sour cream is always welcome and required.

I thawed frozen breasts in the antique microwave at lowest setting for 8 minutes.

Seasoned with salt & pepper and cumin powder. Cook in preheated til spattering 1/2 tb butter splash of olive oil for 4 minutes first side (cover it).
Lift the lid, looks like it's time to flip! Use tongs to gently loosen. If they stick it is likely they are not ready to flip (or you heat is not high enough).. Please, do not overcook. At most, 4 minutes first side, 3 the second. Put on a plate or platter or container- something you can cover so it can go "under cover" for 5 minutes and finish residually cooking.

Our friends, cumin and salsa.

Chop away: 1/2 or 2 lobes red pepper, a small onion, a large garlic clove.
Pop open a bar or half or whatever you want to (or not) use or full fat, low or no fat cream cheese. We tend to go with full on fat so this was at least the recipe recommended 1/2 bar of Phili.

Chicken ready to put under a tent!

What You Need!

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lb. cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, shredded

1 cup TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Thick 'N Chunky Salsa, divided

4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed

1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 cup KRAFT Shredded Cheddar & Monterey Jack Cheese, divided

8 flour tortillas (6 inch)

Make It!

HEAT oven to 350°F.

HEAT large skillet spayed with cooking spray on medium heat. Add onions and garlic; cook and stir 2 min. Add chicken, 1/4 cup salsa, cream cheese, cilantro and cumin; mix well. Cook 5 min. or until heated through, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 cup shredded cheese; mix well.

SPOON about 1/3 cup chicken mixture down center of each tortilla; roll up. Place, seam-side down, in a large baking dish or 2 small dishes (freeze one for later) sprayed with cooking spray; top with remaining desired amount of salsa and shredded cheese.

BAKE 15 to 20 min. or until heated through.

Easy Chicken Parmesan with Ziti & Broccoli

This is so deliciously quick and easy, especially if you have the ingredients on hand!
Bread some chicken tenders (2-3 per person). S & P the tenders then dip in a whisked egg, then in a mix of bread crumbs and grated parmesan (use slightly more cheese than crumbs). Put back on the plate until the broiler is ready.
Preheat broiler with pan inside that is suitable for the broiler (I used an iron skillet).
Cook chicken 2-3 minutes each side.
The cheese really sticks so I used a metal spatula to rip it off the pan surface. Nonstick foil to line the pan would be handy in this case.
Next time I will just use my covered sauce pan or a nonstick skillet to cook the chicken instead of the broiler pan.
Pour a yummy pasta sauce to coat the bottom of your baking dish. Arrange chicken on top, spoon more sauce over the chicken then top with shredded mozzarella. Bake at 450° for 17 minutes (give or take a few).

Cook ziti in a pot of salted, boiling water for 10 minutes. Add Broccoli and cook 4 minutes more. Remove broccoli and drain. When pasta is edible (not too al dente), drain and return to pot. Pour a splash of olive oil in, return the broccoli and sprinkle with some parmesan. Add some pepper.

Best Potato Pancakes!

One happy afternoon with a couple of crazy toddlers and a good mom buddy at Border's bookstore, I wandered off solo to the cookbook section. It thus inspired a browse of the local Boston Public Library bpl.org website (request books with your library card)! I totally love getting books on loan for free. Books that I may not absolutely adore and can then return. In an overnight drop box. Am not about to pay $32.50 for maybe a couple of recipes. Not in this age of the internet. After all, I have at least two rows of cookbooks on one of our bookshelves and perhaps just a couple of recipes are used out of each of them...
I digress- These- finally- are a potato pancake worth making from scratch! Thank you from Tyler Florence and his recipe from "Eat This Book".
The key is to squeeze out all the water you can and fry them in plenty of vegetable oil (we ran out towards the end, with only 1/2 cup to start with).
We used chopped green onions instead of chives. Makes me think, you could add herbs instead, if desired (fresh chopped rosemary, thyme...). The addition just looks nice since it's green and adds subtle flavor enhancement.

Grate potatoes and onions. Avoid slicing your thumb and making it bloody like I did.
This is the laborious, annoying part.
Maybe I will try the grate attachment on the food processor next time.

We have cheesecloth on hand. The package seems to last us forever. Well, maybe not so much now that we have this recipe! Divide your gratings into two piles to squeeze out all the possible juice you can (into the sink). The plump to the left is already squeezed and released.
Season your loosened up shavings with s (no need for kosher) & p and green onions/herbs. Toss it up.
Whisk 2 egg whites. Save the yolks for something good like hollandaise for eggs benedict.
Carefully mix in the egg whites by hand once you have 1/4" of vegetable oil heated on medium/medium high for frying.
Add 2TB globs (a 1/8 cup measure is handy for this) and splat it down nice and flat with your measure or a "dirty" spatula. Allow to cook for two minutes on each side.
Rely on appearance not time when determining to flip. First cakes took 3 minutes each side.
The edges will start to become brown and then you'll know it's time to flip.
Put cooked cakes on paper towels to absorb grease and sprinkle salt to season more.
You can keep them warm before serving in a 200° oven.
We had them (not pictured) topped with sour cream. with a big omelette split in half and pan seared tomato slices. YUMMY!
The remaining pancakes were frozen for future weekday, quick breakfasts. Reheat at 375° for 7 minutes each side.

Jerk BBQ Oven Chicken Wings with Ranch Sauce

We were trying to get psyched up to go out for lunch in Boston. Rainy weather, toddler in need of a nap and the thought of trying out a new recipe quickly changed that thought (not to mention saving a chunk of change). The end result was worth it, especially since we got to enjoy it while a little person was napping!

Salt & pepper 2 pounds of wings (1 lb per person), then pour on the sauce and toss to coat. Disposable gloves are handy for this operation.

Cook in a preheated 350° oven for 50 minutes,
turning after 30 and basting with a brush and more sauce.
We used Reynolds nonstick foil wrapped over the pizza stone.

This is a decent sauce we like to use.

This was one of the few ranch dressings which did not contain monosodium glutamate.
The flavor was enhanced and made more tangy with the addition of horse radish.

Lemon Pepper Grilled Chicken & Veggies

We usually buy the marinated lemon pepper chicken at Shaw's. Dang, tonight they were all out! Time to improvise- and how easy it was.
It tasted so fresh with a zing of lemon!

Soak 4 skewers in water while prepping.
Prepare half a box of rice pilaf.
Cut up the veggies into nice sizes for skewering.

How simple is this? Zest, then juice 1 lemon. Add an equal amount of olive oil. Whisk.

Toss veggies in a covered bowl with a dash of olive oil (and some of the lemony oil), salt & pepper. Skewer on two sticks. Cook in a preheated (on broil) iron grill pan for 8 minutes (turn 1/2 way through). While they cook, get the chicken ready.

For two people, cut up 1 medium size chicken breast (9 pieces). Dredge in lemon oil mix, skewer, then have helper salt & pepper both sides.

Cook in broiler pan 3 minutes, use a metal spatula to carefully loosen from the pan and flip, cook another 3 minutes (6 minutes total).

A tester favorite: rice pilaf.